Ending dark era, Cuba frees last jailed journalist

New York, April 8,
2011--The Cuban government on Thursday released the last journalist remaining
in its prisons, ending a dark, eight-year-long era in which the island nation was
one of the world's worst jailers of the press, at one time imprisoning nearly
30 independent reporters and writers. The Committee to Protect Journalists
expressed relief today that Albert Santiago Du Bouchet Hernández has been freed, a
milestone in an intensive, international advocacy effort led by the Catholic
Church, the Spanish government, and international press and human rights groups.

Du Bouchet Hernández arrived in Madrid this morning after
being released from jail the previous day, press reports said. Du Bouchet
Hernández was exiled to Spain as part of a group of 37 newly freed political
prisoners and more 200 of their family members, according to The Associated
Press. The detainees and their families were flown from Havana on a flight
chartered by the Spanish government, press reports said.

"We are greatly relieved that the last independent Cuban journalist
still in prison has been released. A years-long nightmare of suffering and
humiliation for a large group of journalists and their families has finally
come to an end," said Carlos Lauría, CPJ's senior program coordinator for the
Americas. "However, independent journalists in Cuba continue to face harassment
and intimidation for their work. We call on the Cuban government now to
dismantle the obsolete legal framework that punishes independent reporting with
jail, and to grant freedom of expression to all Cubans."

Du Bouchet Hernández, former director of the Havana-based independent news agency Havana
Press, was serving
a three-year sentence on charges of "disrespect" and distributing enemy
propaganda. At the time of his release, he was being held at the Melena II
Prison, in Havana province. He faced appalling prison conditions, including
poor food and overflowing wastewater, colleague Roberto De Jesús Guerra said.

In
a July 7, 2010, deal brokered by the Catholic Church with the help of the
Spanish government, Cuban authorities agreed to release 52 political prisoners--including
numerous journalists--who had been rounded up in a March 2003 crackdown on
dissent known as the Black Spring.

The government swept up 29
journalists in all in the Black Spring, tried them in secret, one-day
proceedings on broad antistate charges, and sentenced them to terms of up to 27
years. A handful had been released over the years even as some additional
independent journalists, such as Du Bouchet Hernández, who was arrested in 2009, were detained.

The
deal announced in July 2010 led to the gradual release of all Black Spring
prisoners, although most were forced to leave the country for Spain. Du Bouchet
Hernández was not directly included in the 2010 agreement, but his freedom came
with a similar condition of exile.

CPJ
advocated intensively for the release of the 29 Black Spring journalists, as
it did with Du Bouchet, documenting their unjust prosecution and mistreatment
in prison in dozens of reports, news alerts, and letters. CPJ met with Latin
American ambassadors at the United Nations and worked through diplomatic
channels to bring attention to their plight. Starting in 2007, CPJ engaged
Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to help secure the releases.

The newly freed journalists have been recounting their
imprisonment and liberation in a series of first-person stories, "After the Black Spring,"
on the CPJ Blog. Today, journalist Juan
Adolfo Fernández Saínz describes "the horrors of the hellhole" in prison.